EFFY Screening Event: First Reformed

One of EFFY’s strongest goals is to increase student participation and interest, not only within YSE, but across other graduate schools. This screening series aims to explore intersections of the environment with other disciplines through film across graduate schools at Yale. Films included in the series will intersect with varying themes of governance, religion, music, and more, creating opportunities for our graduate peers to explore environmental themes through their own lens. “First Reformed” centers on Reverend Ernst Toller, who oversees a historic but struggling 250-year-old church in upstate New York. His isolated life of routine prayer and work is upended when a pregnant parishioner, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks him to counsel her husband, Michael, who is consumed by a paralyzing despair over irreversible climate collapse. With this, the film weaves the concepts of religion, divinity, and environmentalism. Rather than framing climate change as a political or scientific issue, “First Reformed” scales the conversation of climate change through a lens of religious crisis and stewardship. Dinner provided.